Blocked Black Harbor For Love, I Stripped His Surname

When I was seventeen, I added my three-year-old half brother, Luca, to the Moretti family trust. To give him the Moretti name, an education, and protection, I signed away twelve percent of my own share and shielded him from every bit of my father's resentment. Three years ago, when I left Grey Harbor, I also handed him control of Black Psalm. I thought I was only giving my brother time to learn responsibility. Then I came home to audit the books, and his fiancee Vivian pulled the ring off my finger in front of a full room, pointed at the old ledger I had brought, and said, "Some woman who just flew in from Lisbon thinks she can wave a fake around and pass herself off as a Moretti?" I didn't argue with her. I only gave her three ways to check. Call Luca. Verify the email from the trust lawyers. Scan the founder's ring on my finger. She refused all three. Instead, she had me dragged down into the wine cellar and tried to force me to confess to stealing family property. I called Luca right in front of her. He heard my voice, and he went quiet for a few seconds. "Sienna, this is my engagement night. Don't make a scene." Vivian put him on speaker on purpose. "And what about her?" Luca answered immediately. "Keep her locked up for now. I'll deal with her when I'm done." When the gun butt slammed into my ribs, I knew for certain that Luca had recognized me. He had recognized me, and he still chose to let them do it. Using my left hand, the only one I could still move, I sent a single line to Nora, my lawyer: "Bring the wine my father hid." That was our emergency code. My brother had forgotten who made him a Moretti. So I would make him see for himself exactly who that name belonged to. My first stop back in Grey Harbor was Black Psalm. Three years ago, it was a row of abandoned customs warehouses. I paid for the renovation, secured the license for Luca, and put the operating authority in his name. Now the gold family crest over the door gleamed, while the books were short by $2.4 million. I booked an independent audit under my full legal name, Sienna Moretti. My driver waited at the corner, and I brought no extra people. At first, all I wanted was to determine whether the money had disappeared through Luca's mismanagement or whether someone had deliberately taken it. Vivian Cross came to meet me herself. She wore a white gown with the Black Psalm manager's pin on her chest. At midnight she would get engaged to Luca at the Moretti estate. "Miss Auditor?" She looked over the black-and-silver ring on my hand, her smile still polite. "Take the center booth. The lighting is better there, which will make it easier to review the documents." She had a server take my coat and my document case. I glanced up at the ceiling. The red dot beside the camera was still lit. Black Psalm's footage synced to an off-site mirror server. Vivian clearly knew nothing about the safeguard I had left behind three years ago. The music had barely stopped when a server pulled a black ledger and a handgun out of my document case. Every guest in the room raised a phone. Vivian took a step back, as if she had really been frightened. "That's the founder's old ledger. And the gun isn't registered. Who exactly are you?" "Put Luca on the phone, or have any trust lawyer verify my audit email." I laid my hands flat on the table. "The email is digitally signed. My ring has a serial number too. Scan it, and the system will identify me as a trustee." "You bring a knockoff in here to prove who you are?" She signaled security to block the scanner. "You came back from Lisbon to fight Luca over the money, didn't you?" I looked at her. "I gave you three ways to check. You won't take a single one. That means this isn't a misunderstanding." Vivian pushed a settlement agreement across the table. I was supposed to admit that I had stolen the family ledger and entered her club armed, then pay $500,000 in damages. In front of everyone, she said I had controlled Luca back in Lisbon and had now returned to ruin his engagement. I called Luca twice. The first call was cut off. The second brought a message. "Don't make a scene tonight." At the same time, the phone Vivian had set down on the table lit up. On the screen was the message she had just sent Luca. "The woman you warned me about is here. I'll handle her for you." Luca knew I was back in Grey Harbor, and he knew I was at Black Psalm. He never asked why I had come. He simply accepted Vivian's version of who I was. I sent Nora a message. "Bring the wine my father hid." That was the emergency code we had agreed on. Vivian caught sight of my screen and assumed I was still begging someone for help. She waved over Marcus, her head of security, and two men seized my arms, one on each side. "The Morettis have their own rules," she said. "When you're ready to tell the truth, you can come back out and face people." They dragged me down into the wine cellar. Before the iron door locked, I saw Vivian hand the settlement to Marcus. "Get it signed before midnight." She unpinned the manager's badge and moved it to a more prominent spot on her white gown. "Once that engagement ring is on my finger, Black Psalm is mine."There was no signal jammer in the cellar. Vivian still needed my phone to complete the transfer verification. Marcus held me down against the long table. Another guard opened the protective case around the audit drive. Vivian swapped the settlement for three documents: authorization to unlock the audit drive, a confession of theft, and a statement that I was leaving Grey Harbor of my own free will. "Sign, and I promise the gun and the ledger never reach the police," she said. "You don't want damages. You want me to take the fall for $2.4 million." The smile thinned on her face. "So you're harder to handle than Luca said." I asked to call Luca one more time. Vivian agreed at once, deliberately put him on speaker, and began to cry as she claimed I had entered armed, tried to force her to hand over Black Psalm, and brought unidentified people to threaten her staff. It was loud on the other end. The guests were raising their glasses for the engagement party. "Luca, it's me." I read out the serial number on the founder's ring, then the audit reference number. "Have Nora verify it, or have the club scan the ring. You only have to do one of them." He was silent for a few seconds. I had watched him grow up. He knew my voice. "Sienna, this is my engagement night." He lowered his voice. "I already told you. Don't cause trouble tonight." "I'm locked in the cellar at Black Psalm." "Marcus," he said to his head of security. "Keep her locked up for now. Don't let her ruin the party. We'll talk when I'm finished." The call ended. Vivian lowered the phone slowly. "You heard him. The heir apparent has authorized it." "He told you to detain me. He didn't tell you to hurt me." "When you get out, you can go argue with him about the wording yourself." She had barely finished when the butt of Marcus's gun slammed into my side. I heard a dull thud, and my breath cut out. When they dragged my right hand into the gap in the wine cabinet door, I finally understood. They had already worked out where to injure me so the pain would force me to surrender the key without killing me on the spot. Vivian leaned down. "Can you sign now?" I stopped explaining who I was. She changed the amount from $500,000 to $1.2 million, payable to Northshore Stage Equipment. If the money didn't arrive before midnight, she would send the gun, the ledger, and edited footage to the press and the police. "I'll pay," I said. "The corporate account has two-factor verification. Give me my phone." She had Marcus pin my right hand down while she watched the screen. I logged into the company's preconfigured flagged-transfer channel and entered Black Psalm Audit Settlement in the memo field. The channel would not actually release the funds. Instead, it would generate a payment confirmation while alerting our off-site compliance center, freezing the payment route, and requesting control of the door system. When the verification call connected, I dialed Nora. "I want the $1.2 million bottle." I pushed through the pain in my side and enunciated every word. Nora heard my breathing and paused for a second. "The wine has already left the cellar. All three cars are on the road." Medical, security, and law enforcement were all mobilized at once. Vivian snatched the phone back. The payment confirmation popped up, and she finally let out a breath. She called for an ink pad. She wanted my fingerprint on the statement about leaving the city. She grabbed my injured right hand and forced it down. The second my fingertip almost touched the ink, the music upstairs cut out. The cellar lights went dark, and the magnetic fire-door locks clicked off one after another. In the darkness, the sealed iron door gave a single click and sprang outward.The moment the door opened, Marcus let go of me, but his hand went to his waist. "Don't move." Dominic Shaw's voice came from the doorway. "The trust's security team has taken control of Black Psalm's access system. Put the gun on the floor." Behind him stood Nora, two paramedics, and the officers who had just arrived. While my team restrained Marcus, Vivian shoved through the staff exit and fled with her gown gathered in her fists. Dominic looked at me. "Do we go after her?" "Seal the scene. Separate everyone on shift. No one takes the law into their own hands for me." I pointed at the documents and the ink pad on the table. "Preserve those first." Marcus immediately shouted that he had only followed orders. "Mr. Moretti said it over the phone: 'Keep her locked up for now.'" "The call was recorded." I braced myself against the edge of the table and stood upright. "He authorized you to detain me. He didn't authorize you to strike me with a gun butt or crush my hand in a door. Think carefully about whose orders you followed after that." On the way to the hospital, Nora handed me the preliminary findings. "Northshore Stage Equipment received $2.4 million from Black Psalm over the past six months, and the company is controlled by Vivian's cousin. Your flagged payment is already frozen, and the account has been secured." What I had assumed was mismanagement had been a deliberately prepared payout channel all along. The doctor confirmed a cracked rib, soft-tissue damage to my right hand, and an impact injury at my temple. Nora asked the hospital to preserve the photographs, examination times, and my clothing separately. Based on the scene, the recording, the transfer, and Marcus's preliminary statement, the police applied for additional search and arrest warrants. "You're being admitted," Nora decided for me. "At least stay still tonight." A nurse was still immobilizing my right hand when Dominic received word from the estate. Luca planned to move the engagement ceremony to before midnight and transfer control of Black Psalm to Vivian at the same time. Once he signed, she could access the club's records and administer employee accounts, and every remaining original record could disappear at any moment. I checked the time. Forty-seven minutes to midnight. "Give me the medical report." Nora blocked the door. "You've already given Luca two chances." "One last chance. Not to beg him to believe me." I pulled on my coat, but my injured right hand couldn't manage the buttons. "I want him to choose with every piece of evidence in front of him. After tonight, he won't be able to blame the consequences on Vivian's deception." I brought the audit notice, the freeze receipt, the hospital report, and the founder's ring. Dominic was there only to handle security, not to settle anything between my brother and me. The drive outside the estate was packed with luxury cars. When I reached the ballroom doors, Vivian was crying against Luca's chest. "She came in armed, and she moved family money out. Marcus tried to stop her, so she brought people in and took Black Psalm." Vivian showed a small scrape on her wrist. "She said that when she came back, everything you have would be taken away." Luca never asked whether I was hurt. In Vivian's version of events, I hadn't even arrived yet. He lifted the crest ring in front of the guests. "After tonight, Black Psalm is yours to run. Nobody in Grey Harbor is ever going to push you out again." The authorization papers were placed beside his hand. I pushed open the ballroom doors. The panels struck the wall, and every eye in the room landed on the gauze at my temple and the blood seeping through the fabric at my side. Luca froze with the pen in his hand. "Put the ring down." I looked at him. "What you're about to give her was never yours."Nobody in the ballroom touched a glass after that. I didn't begin by announcing the size of my equity stake. Instead, I invoked an old Moretti rule and asked for three minutes to speak. "If you're going to use family rules to lock me up, then use all of them." I had Nora set the materials on the long table. "Hearing first. Then you decide." One by one, the screen displayed the digitally signed audit notice, the frozen $1.2 million transfer, the hospital photographs, and the link between Northshore Stage Equipment and Vivian's relative. Vivian said right away that the money was what I had used to buy off employees, and that my injuries came from forcing my way into the club with my own men. She had the ledger and the handgun set on the table, then leaned close to Luca's ear and reminded him, "If you back down tonight, everyone in this room will know the real power in Grey Harbor isn't you." Luca's face went dark, but he didn't stop her. I removed the founder's ring and slid it beneath the scanner. The screen displayed its serial number, identified me as the trust's trustee, and showed the reference number for this audit. Muted murmurs rippled through the guests. Then I pointed at the gun. "Its wax-seal number belongs to the family evidence vault from three years ago. Someone who just arrived from Lisbon could never have obtained it. Only someone with access to the club's storage could have taken it." Vivian's lips went white. Only then did Luca see the brace on my right hand, and the fabric at my side soaked through with blood. "You had her beaten?" "I only told Marcus to scare her." Vivian gripped his hand. "Luca, she walked out three years ago and stayed gone, and the first thing she does when she comes back is investigate you and strip my authority. Are you protecting your fiancee, or are you letting her take control of you all over again?" I didn't ask Luca to believe the whole audit on the spot. "Stop the authorization, open the doors, and let the police take everyone involved in for questioning. You and I can settle our accounts tomorrow." That was the bare minimum. Dominic put the live authorization page on the screen and reminded Luca that one tap on pause would send every original Black Psalm record straight to an independent third party for preservation, where no one could alter it unilaterally. Luca saw it. So did the guests. He didn't have to choose between his sister and his fiancee. He only had to allow the facts to be examined. Police lights came on outside the estate. The gatehouse rang through on the internal line and asked whether to let them in. Luca looked at the room full of guests, then at Vivian hiding behind him. He had already recognized me, he had seen the injuries, and he knew the gun couldn't have come from me. He picked up the gate intercom anyway. "Lock it down," he said. "Vivian is the woman I'm about to marry. Nobody takes her out of here tonight." The heavy estate doors closed behind me. At that moment, I wasn't heartbroken, and I didn't ask him why again. At seventeen, I was the one who added three-year-old Luca, my father's illegitimate son, to the Moretti trust. Later, I handed him the position of heir apparent, the house, and the security detail. All along, I had told myself he simply hadn't learned to shoulder responsibility, not that he genuinely didn't care who paid the price. Now I had my answer. I had Dominic open the channel to every security team. "Confirm the current highest authority over the estate." "The Moretti trust." His voice carried across the ballroom. "Not the heir apparent." I called Nora and triggered the emergency suspension. "What do we execute first?" she asked. I looked at the house Luca was standing in, a house held by the trust, a house he was at that moment using to keep the police out. "Start by taking back the estate he's using to imprison me."